Free Burn (Story of CI #3) by Rachel Moschell

downtown Rabat, sprawling white buildings and neon lights and mosque towers snaking above the horizon. "Tell Dad hi from me."
     
    Rupert found her on the firing range at the back of the property, firing rounds in a rage with her Remington under the darkened pines. The shots echoed off the trees behind Rupert's house with eerie precision, slamming into the tin cans lined up along the old brick wall. She could hear the blasts, even over the beat of Muse turned up all the way on her IPod: “You’ll burn in he-ell, you’ll burn in he-ell for your sins…”
    Everyone in CI knew Cail was an excellent shot. Even now, reeling as she was from the conversation with her mother, Cail's hands were steady and deadly on the Remington.
    But inside, she was shaking like a druggie on crack.
    "Cail." Rupert's gravelly voice cut through the semi-darkness after she blew the last can off the brick wall and into oblivion.
    She was amazed she could hear him over Muse, too.
    "What?" She jerked the weapon from her shoulder and turned her head towards him, ripping out the ear buds. Her uncle wore a beat-up John Deere baseball cap over thinning hair the color of beer. He had on his preferred uniform of faded Wranglers and a tucked in flannel. Uncle Rupert had lost weight, she noted then, while Cail was on assignment in Rabat. He still had that paunch that came from sitting behind a desk after hitting fifty and leaving behind work in the field with the CIA. But Rupert's shoulders were thinner and his cheeks looked a bit more hollow.
    He was standing there beside her, raising a bushy brown eyebrow at Cail. "Rough call?”
    Cail lowered the rifle and suppressed a wail. “You have no idea.”
    It was good to see Uncle Rupert after that yucky phone call. He’d taken care of her since she was twenty-one.
    If she had gone back home, it would have been a disaster.
    “That bad?”
    Cail felt her bony shoulders slump forward and she stared at the ground. "Yes. Totally that bad. She’s still having visions of me and Jonah and those eight grandchildren we are supposed to give her. And the end of the world. Oh, and she's still pissed I don't live at home and help her crochet doilies and can peaches." Cail grinned, raising her eyes to meet Rupert's.
    "Well, everyone can dream." Rupert gave her a lopsided smile and hooked his thumbs through the loops of his cowboy-buckle belt. Cail almost got up the nerve to tell him about Jonah and the near-knifing at the hostel but couldn't quite talk about it yet. It was embarrassing as hell and she still couldn't get herself to say Jonah's name out loud after all these years.
    Rupert walked closer to her and they both sank down on a couple boulders under the pines. “Maybe it’s time to sleep it off til tomorrow. We can talk more then.”
    Cail's stomach flip-flopped like a dying fish and she fought being sick. Tomorrow they needed to get everything ready for the trip to Timbuktu the following day. Tomorrow was also her reunion meeting with Jonah. He had called her cell earlier this afternoon to see if she wanted to get together and do lunch…with him and his fiancée.
    It was all so unreal. Illusory.
    “We have to hope Lázaro Marquez is gonna follow the trail to Timbuktu,” Rupert was saying. Then he frowned at the pines. “Wara won’t be safe until Marquez is taken out. Having Marquez after one of our own is a security risk for the whole organization, too. I want to ask Lalo to help us.”
    Cail felt her entire expression sour. "You can't be serious."
    Rupert looked away. Shadow fell over his face from the bill of his bright green cap, obscuring lines of age and stubble. "Listen," he said, "I wouldn't ask him if it weren't important."
    Cail was already shaking her head. She couldn't believe Rupert would think of asking Lalo this. "He can't. You can't. It would be cruel."
    Rupert was silent. Finally he said, "It's also cruel to let Wara live with this hit man after her. Eventually he's gonna find her. And if you